House Democratic Forum on Iraq
Speaker of the House-Designate has sent out an email to her caucus announcing a House Democratic Forum on Iraq [PDF] to be held Tuesday, December 5.
The featured panelists?
- Rep. Ike Skelton, Ranking Member, Armed Services Committee
- Rep. John Murtha, Ranking Member, Defense Appropriations Subcommittee
- Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor
- Richard Holbrooke, former Ambassador to the United Nations
- Major General John Batiste, USA (ret.), former Commander of the First Infantry Division in Iraq.
One can only imagine what recommendations this group will come up with! Sure, most of them have opposed the war from the beginning and most have written op-eds against the war and/or the way the administration has conducted it. But I’m quite sure they’ll surprise us.
Well, they may have been against the war, but the fact is the war exists, and is an ongoing fiasco. Now some of the most vocal critics are being given a chance to ‘put up or shut up’ on ways to actually fix the problem(s). But whether you agree with their politics or not, this is a group of people with significant skills & experience in the relevan areas, rather than a bunch of Mike Brown-style ‘horse lawyers’.
Of course, Bush will ignore anything they suggest, just as he has already stated he will ignore whatever the Baker commission produces (if it conflicts with what he wants to hear).
Rather than predict what they will say and how the President will respond why don’t we wait until they come up with something? It may be good, it may be bad but trying to foretell what will happen is silly.
There’s no predicting necessary – Bush has already stated numerous times he’s going to keep our full complement of troops there until “the job is done”, whatever he thinks that is. He’s trumpeted “stay the course” to the exclusion of all other options.
Whatever ideas the ISG or this House panel come up with are completely superfluous to Bush – they’re just options Congress will have to choose from to force down Bush’s throat. He’s already made his position clear.